Storage bins for motor vehicles and other applications are often provided with an individual spring to provide the force for opening the bin door and an individual damper to provide for smooth, even and consistent movement as the spring biases the door from the closed position to the open position.
Unfortunately, the combination of individual springs and dampers often leads to uneven flushes of the bin door to the surrounding housing. This is often due to the fact that the spring load is not uniform across the entire door. In addition, individual springs are easy to misinstall in terms of orientation as well as proper “locking” of the spring in location. Still further, the anchor points for the spring need to be robust to allow for the desired amount of spring tension. Consequently, a typical design has a limited amount of ability to increase the spring constant before the housing needs to be redesigned.
This document relates to a new and improved viscous damper having an integrated spring. Advantageously, that integrated spring is external to the damper housing. The external mounting of the integrated spring allows for proper “clocking” of the coil spring to the damper so that the required compartment door force freeload is provided. Adjustability of the coil spring preload is also enhanced. Further, it is easier to change a coil spring for increase/decrease of door cycle time. Still further, coil spring size, material, wire gauge and number of coils as well as coatings are not limited to the internal package size of the damper housing. Accordingly, there is more design flexibility allowing the viscous damper to be utilized for a greater number of potential applications.